Zoology and wildlife conservation

It has been possible to use teleseismic shear-coupled P waves recorded by the Sino-American Tibetan plateau broadband experiment between 1991 and 1992 to establish that there are considerable differences in average crustal thickness and average Poisson's ratio within the high Tibetan plateau. The crust is between 10 km and 20 km thinner in the northern plateau than in the south, with the Poisson's ratio being much higher than normal in the northern plateau. Changes in upper-mantle structure and properties seem to be linked with changes in crustal properties.

Giant magmatic bodies, or batholiths, that constitute nearly the entire crust in belts thousands of kilometers long are integral features of major mountain systems associated with continental arcs. Seismic data provide images of crust-mantle interactions during ongoing removal of the dense batholithic root beneath the southern Sierra Nevada mountains in California.

The study of the crustal Poisson's ratio for all the continents except Antarctica, reveals that the Poisson's ratio increases with increase in age. This increase in the poisson's ratio is attributed to the presence of mafic lower crusts below the cratons. The cratons were formed by the delamination of the lower crust during continental collisions.